May 18-20

Friday afternoon: back on 222 for the opener of the weekend series with the New Britain Rock Cats. The R-Phils' recent struggles at home continued as the Cats built an early 4-0 lead and held on for a 5-2 win. Jiwan James had an RBI hit for the R-Phils, the other run scored when Stephen Susdorf hustled home on a wild pitch. Losing pitcher David Buchanan was victimized by the long ball surrendering three home runs in seven innings of work. Over 9700 in attendance for fireworks after the game as I was in attendance in my car for the drive home. On Saturday we had our usual lunch date in Quarryville, after that Jenny and Helen were along for the evening's ballgame. On this night a ninth-inning fielding error doomed the R-Phils in a tough 3-2 loss. Leandro Castro hit a solo home run and Cesar Hernandez had an RBI double, Michael Cisco took the loss in relief of Julio Rodriguez. Another 9000+ fireworks crowd but no matter for us, we were gone ASAP. On Sunday the ladies were along once again, they don't usually do day games but this was our belated Mother's Day/breast cancer awareness day. The ballclub finally broke through with a 10-4 win as Darin Ruf homered and drove home three runs. Outfielder Brandon Tripp had two hits and two RBI, Cesar Hernandez and catcher Steve Lerud had run-scoring hits, Tug Hulett and Jiwan James each chipped in an RBI sac fly. Jonathan Pettibone won it with relief support from Lisalberto Bonilla, Juan Morillo and Justin Friend. Better than 7000 in the park on a windy 80-degree day as the homestand ended, the R-Phils come back home on Tuesday the 29th. Got back to town shortly after 6:00 and headed for the rink, a full day of street hockey makeups was well underway. Every team in the league had a game on this day, the first game started at 3:00. We wound down after 9:00, I walked in my front door twelve hours after I had left. Take care, thanks for reading.